A Series E funding by Nexus Partners, Tiger Global and GIC, the Singapore government’s sovereign wealth fund, has raised the valuation of the e-commerce company ShopClues to $1.1 billion. Headquartered in Gurgaon, India, the company was founded in California’s Silicon Valley in 2011.
This new “unicorn valuation” puts ShopClues in the same league as competing Indian e-commerce companies Flipkart and Snapdeal, reports TechCrunch. All three of these companies, as well as Amazon India, offer a wide range of products, but ShopClues is focusing on price-conscious consumers in smaller cities that are often overlooked by online sellers.
“We are targeting the kind of shoppers who are now coming online and who you will see more of this year and next,” co-founder and chief executive officer Sanjay Sethi told TechCrunch.
While keeping margins sustainable, ShopClues is able to offer low prices by serving as a platform for merchants instead of carrying its own inventory. Part of its Series E round will be used to improve its cloud-based e-commerce tools and attract more small businesses. The company currently provides capital loans and logistic and online payment tools.
It expects to hit profitability by the first half of 2017, which is also when Sethi says the company plans to list on the U.S. or Indian stock market.
